Various turbomachines such as a gas turbine or steam turbine include a shaft, multiple rotor disks coupled to the shaft and various rotor blades mounted to the rotor disks. A conventional gas turbine includes a rotatable shaft with various rotor blades mounted to discs in the compressor and turbine sections thereof. Each rotor blade includes an airfoil over which pressurized air, combustion gases or other fluids such as steam flows, and a platform at the base of the airfoil that defines a radially inner boundary for the air or fluid flow.
The rotor blades are typically removable, and therefore include a suitable root portion such as a T-type root portion that is configured to engage a complementary attachment slot in the perimeter of the rotor disk. The root may either be an axial-entry root or a circumferential-entry root that engages with corresponding axial or circumferential slots formed in the disk perimeter. A typical root includes a neck of minimum cross sectional area and root protrusions that extend from the root into a pair of lateral recesses located within the attachment slot.
For circumferential roots, a single attachment slot is formed between forward and aft continuous circumferential posts or hoops that extend circumferentially around the entire perimeter of forward and aft faces of the rotor disk. The cross-sectional shape of the circumferential attachment slot includes lateral recesses defined by the forward and aft rotor disk posts or hoops that cooperate with the root protrusions of the rotor blades to radially retain the individual blades during turbine operation.
In the compressor section of a gas turbine, for example, rotor or compressor blades (specifically the root component) are inserted into and around the circumferential slot and rotated approximately ninety degrees to bring the root protrusions of the rotor blades into contact with the lateral recesses to define a complete stage of rotor blades around the circumference of the rotor disks. The rotor blades include platforms at the airfoil base that may be in abutting engagement around the slot. In other embodiments, spacers may be installed in the circumferential slot between adjacent rotor blade platforms. Once all of the blades (and spacers) have been installed, a final remaining space(s) in the attachment slot is typically filled with a specifically designed spacer assembly, as generally known in the art.
A common technique used to facilitate the insertion of the final spacer assembly into the circumferential slot is to include a non-axi symmetric loading slot in the rotor disc. Various conventional spacer assemblies have been designed to eliminate the need for a loading slot in the rotor disk. However, these assemblies include complex devices. These conventional assemblies are generally difficult to assemble, costly to manufacture and may result in unbalanced axial loading. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved locking spacer assembly that is relatively easy to assemble within the final space between platforms of adjacent rotor blades of a turbomachine such as compressor and/or turbine rotor blades of a gas turbine.